I am currently in Mark's ScoreItUp course and I can only say the best things about it. The spring 2012 course is held at Concordia's campus in Irvine, and it is MW 6-10PM, with some weekends, you can visit the website for schedule info.

There are 30 people in the class. I'm not sure if Concordia even has a lecture hall that could fit 400 if he wanted to do that. That's a lie put out by some other prep course I'm assuming. Probably Kaplan. Or ScoreF@%&ers.

Mark is a great person, teacher, and adviser. Before I enrolled in the course, I asked him if he would meet with me for lunch to talk about the class. We met at Togo's (his favorite spot) and he told me all about the class, the class options, and his personal recommendations for what I should do- when I should take the class, the test, etc. He's super helpful and reassuring.

The class itself is great. I'm currently a CSU Fullerton student and I must say that the LSAT prep is the class I look forward to attending the most. It's interesting and stimulating, more importantly- it will help your score and your confidence for the test. My diagnostic was 144 and after less than a month I scored a 158. This is solely from attending his classes-I haven't been able to do self-studying (as he recommends) until finals are done after this week. I'm very confident that I will achieve the score I want by the end of the course.

I highly recommend this class to anyone in the area. Although I have not taken another prep course, I really do believe that he has the best course offered. Friends have told me that their classes through some of the bigger companies weren't always great, with teachers that were subpar. Mark is the only person involved with ScoreItUp. He runs it, he markets it, and he teaches it. The only thing he doesn't do is proctor the mock exams, he leaves this up to his niece. This is a student benefit because perhaps some students would feel more comfortable if he's in the room.

If you are thinking about doing a prep course, at least think about giving Mark a call. He'll answer and will talk to you and within moments you will hear the confidence he has about his course. It's definitely justified-no leap in logic here.

Feel free to ask me a question if you want- here's my personal e-mail (I don't know how often I'll be checking my PM's on this site while studying)

I never took Score it Up or any other prep, I just personally know 2 people who took it at UCI for October 2011 test. Both stopped going, and relayed a similar message about all the classes getting combined into a large lecture hall and feeling misled. I attended UCI and know that lecture halls hold 400 people, so I just did some mental math. It could've been way less people I have no idea. I felt like sharing what I have heard, but obviously anecdotal. I felt like I had clearly prefaced this.

Again, I never attended any prep class from any company, I'm not endorsing or denouncing anything...seems like a lot of people got a lot out of the class so you might too. Cheers

My main concern with Score It Up is if I take it it might actually cost more for me than other prep companies. It's the cheapest, however I live in Northridge, CA which is quite a drive. If you gas spent driving for the entire course + the hour and a half drive each way it seems hard to choose them. I really wish he'd have a class closer to LA. Someone earlier was saying they commuted to the class from LA and even Riverside. How did they do it? And was it really worth the nearly 3 hours of roundtrip driving plus gas prices?

I'm a longtime reader who doesn't post much, but I wanted to make sure this thread isn't hijacked by corporate test prep companies and random people spreading misinformation. Feel free to call me a promoter if it makes you feel better.

I personally found ScoreItUp to be a great experience and one I would highly recommend to anyone in Orange County/South LA. Each class is taught by Mark and class sizes are around 20-30 people tops. Mark is a practicing prosecutor in the OC and a Harvard grad. The small size makes it perfect to meet other students on the law school admissions path and get 1 on 1 time with Mark. He is always available to answer any questions you may have about law school admission, the LSAT, or practicing law.

Probably the biggest difference between this class and Blueprint/Kaplan/Princeton is that you will actually have an instructor that cares about your success and who wants to get to know you. I cannot count the number of times Mark ordered pizza for the class, brought cookies and bananas, or stayed after to help a student. Other companies are in it solely for their bottom line. Since I have taken the class, Mark has continued to follow up with me to see how I scored and where am I heading to law school a year later.

Does that instructor assign any textbooks or PT books? And does he recommend any self study books before class...like does he recommend people read the bibles before class or would they conflict with his teaching method?

Junebugman wrote:My main concern with Score It Up is if I take it it might actually cost more for me than other prep companies. It's the cheapest, however I live in Northridge, CA which is quite a drive. If you gas spent driving for the entire course + the hour and a half drive each way it seems hard to choose them. I really wish he'd have a class closer to LA. Someone earlier was saying they commuted to the class from LA and even Riverside. How did they do it? And was it really worth the nearly 3 hours of roundtrip driving plus gas prices?

I would suggest reaching out to Mark. He did mention to the class that he is also doing a video course so maybe you could make arrangements to do some sort of hybrid if the drive is a problem for you. I live an hour from Irvine, and for me, it is definitely worth the drive. Like others on this post have said, this is the most important test of your adult life. Mark is the guaranteed instructor for ScoreItUp, so you don't have to gamble on the instructor. I would pick quality over convenience any day. Especially considering the importance of the LSAT.

abryn wrote:Probably the biggest difference between this class and Blueprint/Kaplan/Princeton is that you will actually have an instructor that cares about your success and who wants to get to know you.

I usually wouldn't do this, but this statement really got under my skin.

If you haven't taken a Blueprint class, don't make a statement like this. We make sure that we hire instructors that will care about their students' scores and develop a personal relationship with them. I spend about an hour before and after each of my classes answering questions for students, not to mention countless hours on the phone and writing e-mails to help them. I keep in touch at least through the application process to make sure that they don't have any questions/make any mistakes. I have several former students I count as friends.

I'm glad that your experience with Mark was a positive one, and I'm always happy to know that there are instructors out there that I don't know personally who put in the extra effort to get to know and help their students. And I think you should definitely come on here and let people know that you had a great experience, as there are too many options out there that are not as good.

But don't come on here and belittle the efforts of someone else, especially if you haven't taken a class with them. And if you have, and didn't feel the instructor cared about your performance, shoot me a PM and let me know - we take that stuff very seriously.

Haha, there's no need to get so defensive. I was simply trying to emphasize that ScoreItUp only has one instructor that relies on referrals more than marketing, hence the experience is more personal. It's a little bit easier to guarantee you are getting a good experience when you know the instructor you are getting versus a corporation with dozens of instructors. But I'm glad you took the opportunity to take one sentence out of context to promote yourself here?

abryn wrote:Haha, there's no need to get so defensive. I was simply trying to emphasize that ScoreItUp only has one instructor that relies on referrals more than marketing, hence the experience is more personal. It's a little bit easier to guarantee you are getting a good experience when you know the instructor you are getting versus a corporation with dozens of instructors. But I'm glad you took the opportunity to take one sentence out of context to promote yourself here?

Trying to emphasize a point by making an unwarranted assumption about other prep companies... don't think you are studying your LSAT materials hard enough.

Junebugman wrote:Does that instructor assign any textbooks or PT books? And does he recommend any self study books before class...like does he recommend people read the bibles before class or would they conflict with his teaching method?

Junebug- He provides many lsat exams and the "superprep" book, which contains info that you can use yourself. Also, when you sign up, you get access to many files on his website- these include problem break-downs, and notes on various topics.

As for recommending self study before class, he doesn't think it's necessary. He addressed this in the first class, but also I had asked him about this before I signed up. He thinks that doing self-study with any lsat book can be help, but it definitely is not necessary for his class-and also will not conflict with his teaching.

Hope this helps. I would really recommend shooting him an e-mail or a call with any more questions, as he will help you out.

Junebugman wrote:Does that instructor assign any textbooks or PT books? And does he recommend any self study books before class...like does he recommend people read the bibles before class or would they conflict with his teaching method?

Self-study is optional. He recommended the bibles but it is not required. It will not conflict with his course or teaching methods. I read both the LG and LR bibles, and it gave me a great foundation for both. However, for the LG, the books were written quite some time ago.. so it didn't cover some of the newer games. I found the games in the book easy, but on the more recent PTs there seem to be more complicated questions. I was able to improve my understanding of these more complicated games through the ScoreItUp course. The LR bible is great because it covers all the different question types that are on the LSAT. Mark also covers extensive material relating to the question types on the LR sections so I don't think it is necessary to read prior to attending a course. And again, the language seems to have gotten more complicated on the recent tests.

I took ScoreItUp last summer, and I honestly thought that it was a really useful class. I understand how you feel about being worried that it is a smaller, lesser-known test prep company, and I was a bit uncertain at first as well. However, after having taken the class, I can assure you that you can trust this class. The reason why ScoreItUp is small is because Mark Sacks teaches all the classes himself. That is also why he is able to keep the costs low, because he does not need to hire any other instructors. On the first day of class, all the students take a diagnostic LSAT exam and Mark will give you books of almost all the previous LSATs that have been released by LSAC. After that, Mark will teach you a lot of useful techniques and break down the test into understandable parts. After teaching most of the techniques, Mark will transition into allowing you guys to do a lot of practice sections in class, and he will answer questions about them. Mark was able to explain the thinking process behind how to get the questions right, and that helped me improve a lot. He taught us how to efficiently diagram different types of logic games and taught us lots of tricks about how to get the logical reasoning questions right. I personally thought that his logical reasoning lessons were the most valuable, and he taught it so that I even changed the way I analyze arguments on a day-to-day basis. What Mark taught me was useful even beyond the LSAT. I am able to make more effective arguments thanks to taking that class.

Apart from being a really effective teacher, Mark is a really nice guy. He's always happy to talk to his students after class and meet with them outside of class. He would even bring us cookies and candy to help keep us alert during the long hours of LSAT training. Oh, and he even invited the class over to his house to have a party! I don't know any other teacher who would actually be so generous as to invite his students over to his house and buy them all pizza and drinks. When I told him that I was surprised that he would do such a thing, he told me that he liked to host parties for the students because it would give them a chance to get to know each other and make friends. Because of that, I was able to make friends with a lot of the people in my LSAT class that I wouldn't have had a chance to really talk to otherwise.

I would say that the only downside is that ScoreItUp is only offered in Irvine, so if you don't live locally, it could be troublesome to commute. So, if you are fortunate enough to be in Irvine for the summer, I would really recommend taking this class. If not, I have heard that Blue Print is good too and I think they have more locations in different places. Oh, and I heard that Mark is planning to make videos for an online course, so if he makes that available this summer, you might be able to do that if you aren't going to be in Irvine.

I know that this is a pretty long post, but I just wanted to give you a better understanding of what taking ScoreItUp was like. I hope that you found it useful, and I wish you the best of luck on the LSAT.

I was in ScoreItUp's inaugural class four years ago. Prior to taking the course I had taken Mark's classes at UCI, so I knew the high quality lecturer that Mark was well before stepping into his first ScoreItUp class. I can promise you I had high expectations, and Mark didn't disappoint. If anything he exceeded my expectations. My score on the LSAT significantly increased as the course went along, and I eventually scored high enough to get into a top ten law school. I also recently graduated from that law school and am now studing for the bar. I don't want this post to be long-winded. I simply share my story to ensure you all that Mark is not an untested lecturer and teacher of the LSAT, and that ScoreItUp is not in untested product. To the contary, through ScoreItUp Mark has been improving his students LSAT scores and producing graduates of top ten law schools -- I and many others are living proof of that.

I echo all the positive things said about Mark and ScoreItUp throughout this thread, and strongly encourage you to consider ScoreItUp for your LSAT prep.

Junebugman wrote:All I can tell is Blueprint is about a few hundred bucks cheaper than PR and offers like 30 more hours plus something called "clinics and workshops"...Not quite sure what that is compared to others. But as far as which has better qualified instructors, I don't know. The only surefire answer I keep running into is don't take Kaplan lol

Workshops are lessons at the end of each book where we go over a large number of questions that come from the types covered in that lesson book to review the material. We believe that repetition over time is the best way to learn; instead of learning it and then forgetting it until the review at the end of the course, we do reviews intermittently so that the material stays fresh.

Clinics are lessons dedicated to each section, individually. So there is an RC clinic, LG clinic, and LR clinic. Those happen after we've covered all of the material for that section. They're, again, a large number of questions that take you through all of the concepts for that section as a refresher/review. We talk about strategies, common ways the test will trick you, and review everything we've learned.

Jay Donnell is our Irvine instructor. He's one of our most experienced instructors. If you have any questions about the course, or want to get in touch with Jay, just let me know (through a PM).

I actually live in Northridge. I know you guys host a class at CSUN, which is my UG and less than five minutes away. That's why I'm trying to make a mental "Score it Up vs PR vs Blueprint". I've made my rough pro/con list and from it I've seen that Score It up is the cheapest and still it's 100 hours of lecture and apparently it's the same instructor, who has a good history of teaching. However UCI is about a nearly hour and a half drive, which is a deal breaker, unless his class is top notch enough to justify it. Blueprint is the 2nd cheapest and I know they offer like 12 hours more than SIU. It's also nearby, however there is the Unknown factor. I've heard a lot of bad stories of people dropping money for a prep class, only to have a bad teacher. I feel like that chance exists with PR and Blueprint, and especially with Kaplan from what I keep hearing. That's why I feel a little safer with SIU since you already know the teacher. That's my dilemma.

I think ScoreItUp actually has the most lecture hours which was a critical factor for me when I was selecting a test prep company. The total hours are 124, 100 of which are live lecture hours. The remaining hours are for the mock exams. I think BP's total hours were 112, only 88 of which were lecture hours. I would definitely consider those hours when factoring in the price.

I also saw in some previous posts that ScoreItUp had 400 student classes and some students refuted that. I am currently in the course and we have about 30 students or so. However, if you are taking this course in the summer, I would imagine that the class size would be larger (but nowhere near 400). Most students would probably prefer to do it over the summer so it doesn't interfere with school (and vice versa). Anyway, those are just a couple things you should keep in mind.

I have been following a number of the TLS threads since I began seriously thinking about law school over a year ago but never felt compelled to contribute until now... and I'm definitely not Mark Sacks

The reason there are so many positive comments about Score It Up and Mark is because this class is personal. Mark is a great guy, he makes a real connection with his students. He is available to talk to you on the phone from before you decide to take his class through deciding which law school offer to take. I took Mark's LSAT class last summer, took the exam in October and will be headed to UVA in August. He was available throughout the process. I'll admit I was nervous at first when I made the decision to go with a small unknown option over the big names, so much was riding on my results, but I am glad I made the decision I did. It is because of this personal connection combined with a very strong prep program that so many are willing to take the time to write him a review.

If you are having trouble deciding which LSAT prep course to take, call them both up and see what you think. Decide for yourself, but as I said, I am glad I made the decision I did and I am very pleased that the results brought me an opportunity to go to a top 10 law school.

I've taken Score It Up, and on the whole I think it's a good prep class. But, I do have some reservations about it that would probably make me recommend a different course to someone.

If you're trying to get a really high score or make a really huge score increase, Score It Up probably isn't for you. Mark, while a very good explainer most of the time, doesn't do enough to teach methods that help you attack problems. In LG, for instance, mostly what he does is go over a game afterwards by doing it out loud and on a whiteboard, but doesn't generalize any methods or strategies that could help you in similar problems next time. Realizing that I needed something more, I bought Blueprint's LG Book and learned much more about a method and overall approach to different games. (As an aside, he had us do the mauve/yellow dinosaur game probably after only a month of lessons. Why?!)

His reading comp methods are good, though, as are his LR explanations, i.e., he does a pretty good job of explaining why each answer was right or wrong. But, similar to LG, I thought he just explained the LR questions afterwards without giving strategy or method for approaching similar questions next time.

While Mark does have some supplemental material on his website, the video content is locked even if you are enrolled in his longest, most expensive live class, which to me is pretty unreasonable. (Maybe more unreasonable, the PDFs on his website are all written in comic sans!) Overall, Mark lacks an online component to his course that a bigger, reputable test prep company would probably offer. If you keep in mind that he is a one-man-show prep company, this isn't all that surprising.

Finally, Mark's teaching method is heavily focused on PrepTests. All lessons are focused on PrepTests and he assigns multiple PrepTests per week as homework. At first, I was having trouble keeping up with all of it, but then I realized that since I am taking the LSAT pretty early and have a long time to study, I probably shouldn't keep up with it all. By the time you're done with the course, he'll have had you do up to PrepTest 60 or so. For me, doing so many so soon could actually have been detrimental to my studying because then I wouldn't have enough PrepTests to practice on leading up to the actual LSAT. Again, him being a one man operation, it makes sense that he relies so heavily on the PrepTests, since I wouldn't expect an Orange County DA like him to create workbooks and other materials to guide lessons and supplement PrepTests.

Score It Up is a good class for most students. Mark is a very likeable guy and I am confident that he could score at or near 180 if he sat for an upcoming LSAT. His stories are mostly entertaining, if not a little too long. His experiences at HLS, a private law firm, and now at the OC DA are very interesting to hear about. But as a test prep company, Score It Up suffers from its small size in some important ways, like an online component, the lack of method and overreliance on PrepTests.

If someone at UCI or around Orange County asked me to recommend them a test prep company, I'd probably recommend Blueprint. I've heard good things about it from online posts, as well as my friend who took the class. Its LG book was very helpful to me, so I'd be confident that the live class is just as helpful.